In his Horse Doc Blog, Dr. Gregory A Beroza of The Long Island Equine Medical Center captures the artistic and realistic portrayal of the relationship between the horse lover and the equine that engenders love and devotion in the film "War Horse."
Inspirational Message of Good Deeds and Good Return
Blog captures sensitive relationship between horse and owner as portrayed in film and book
As Dr. Beroza writes, "Director Steven Spielberg has done it again; creating another cinematographic masterpiece which should be enjoyed by all family members. It is impossible to conceive of any horse lovers not welling up with tears by movie’s end. After the last scene, the opening day movie audience broke into spontaneous applause."
"‘War Horse’ is based on the 1982 Michael Morpurgo children’s book, turned Lincoln Center play, and now made into a successful big screen production. An aging English tenant farmer named Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan), down on his health and luck, comes home with a beautiful horse that he couldn’t pass up buying. He would have been better served coming home with a big strong draft-type horse for plowing his family’s virgin fields."
"Ted’s son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) falls in love with their new horse, now named Joey. To gain his father’s respect and save the family farm, Albert swears to train Joey to plow their fields. The boy and horse develop an inseparably strong bond until The Great War (World War 1) breaks out and Joey is sold to the military both to serve and to help Ted from losing the farm."
"Joey is a magnificently special horse that touches the lives of everyone he comes in contact with. He affects the British and German soldiers, a kindly French farmer and his impressionable granddaughter. Joey sustains his share of war tragedies and injuries, but is a trooper until the end. The war causes all involved sustaining bloody conflicts and Joey finds himself struggling to survive. By movies’ end there was hardly a dry eye in the theater."
"Over the last 30 years, I’ve watched a great number of television and big screen horse movies including Secretariat, Seabiscuit, and Dreamer. However, ‘War Horse’stands uniquely apart in its depth of emotion and inspirational message of good deeds and good turns amidst a world filled with disappointing realities. I rate this movie 5 out of 5 HorseDoc hooves!"
Thanks to Dr Beroza for allowing EquiMed to use his fine blog.